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Lewis: Imitation of Tennyson
THE RETURN OF MOSES BADDUN
But Martha Gloop was good and garrulous
Nor let him be, but often breaking in
Told him, with other annals of the port,
How George's asthma kept on getting worse
And Henry Bulp kept chickens, and the nose
Of Auntie Hamps grew daily ruddier—said
To be dyspepsia. Moses savoured it,
Oh, savoured it intensely: only when she said
'Your wife is now the wife of Frederick Slink,
And has three children and a rabbit run,'
He shook his old bald head pathetically,
Repeated muttering,'—and a rabbit run,'
And said, 'Come, tell me, let me know the worst.
Has she betrayed the faith I placed in her?'
But Martha, fearful: 'Why, she voted Lab.'
And Moses, hoarsely: 'Blast her, I said Lib.'
The day before I sailed for 'Merriky
I said, 'Vote Lib., you devil, Lib. or nowt.
Remember Cobden's words in '66,
And what the Old Man said at Birmingham.'
And so, with many a fierce and darkling oath,
Swiftly he turn'dt and leapt adown the street
Down to the neat-cropt garden where his wife
Sat coyly with a Labour canvasser,
And shrieking, 'Lib., not Lab.!' he swung his club,
And bang'd them both, and gnaw'd their ears and necks,
Crying out fiercely, 'Judas! Traitress! Dogs!'
And leapt away and caught the next up train
And took the next boat back to Africa.
And when they found the pair the little port
Had seldom seen a messier spectacle.
351
D. B. w. LEWIS